Category Archives: Temple football

10.04.21
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After Cincy, plenty of room at the top for Temple

After Temple makes a prime time appearance on ESPN Friday night at Cincinnati, the Bearcats–a longtime staple of the Owls’ football schedule–will be gone.

Maybe forever from the Temple schedule after this year given the fact that the school wants an early departure from the American Athletic Conference.

That’s sad because Cincy was a longtime regional rival in the next state over where the Owls have had pretty good success against.

The Owls have more to thank Cincinnati for than the wins, though.

Cincinnati showed Temple University how to get to the top of the AAC: Build a state of the art on-campus stadium (Nippert Stadium is basically a new stadium on an old site) and compile four-straight top-level recruiting classes composed of players who want to experience college life in an urban environment, not in the middle of nowhere. Mix in a popular players coach who wants to stay a few years and not jump for the first P5 offer like most of his league mates, stir, and come up with a top 10 team.

In the G5, a top 10 team is reaching the pinnacle.

Philadelphia has arguably more to offer than Cincy as a city.

Temple, as a program, needs to, err, Cherry pick the other ingredients of success–getting a popular players’ coach and stringing together a few top-rated recruiting classes.

Owls on ESPN after winning the AAC title in 2016.

Can the Owls do it?

Sure.

In Al Golden and Matt Rhule, the Owls had popular players’ coaches and top recruiting classes. In a league where everyone but Navy was running an RPO, they established a unique offensive style that featured establishing the run first. Only when that happened, which was pretty much always, the Owls faked it into the belly of a big-time running back (Bernard Pierce, Jahad Thomas and Ryquell Armstead come to mind) and that mere fake led to wide open Temple receivers running through the secondary for explosive plays in the downfield passing game. Special teams were not only locked down but the Owls routinely got big punt returns on their end and blocked punts on the other end.

What happened?

Temple beat Cincinnati four-straight times and the only recent loss to the Bearcats came on a blocked extra point that was taken back for two points in 2019. Under Rod Carey, the Owls don’t lock down special teams. Hell, they often leave the keys on top of the vehicle so the carjackers don’t have to do any work. Returning a kick for touchdown? Not allowed. Blocking a punt? Out of the question. You know how to take a punt to the house? Put Trey Blair back there. He has plenty of experience doing just that in a great high school league. You know how to block a punt? Have your tallest player (Ronnie Stevenson?) with a good wingspan and vertical leap come straight up the middle and stick his paw up. When Steve Addazio needed to block a field goal at UConn, he put 6-6 wide receiver Deon Miller in the game and gave him the job. It got done. Temple won, 17-14, when Brandon McManus kicked the game-winning field goal with no time left.

“I wanted to put the ball in the middle of the field and give the best kicker in the country a chance to win it and that’s just what he did,” Daz said.

Over at Cincy, special teams are the same third of the game they were at Temple under the Golden Rhule.

Now Cincy is on top of the AAC hierarchy and a lot of things will have to go right for the 28-point underdog Owls to shock the world on Friday.

Whatever happens, Cincy has now taken over the league for however much time they have left in it. Before leaving, they have shown the Temple administration how to get back on top. It’s not rocket science and it’s doable.

Football is the front porch of a major university and Cincy has the best porch in the AAC neighborhood now.

Good blueprints make for good porches. Now that the rich folks are leaving the neighborhood, we will find out soon enough if the Owls are the neighbors who invest enough coin to move on up to the East Side.

Friday: Cincinnati Preview

10.02.21
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Temple football: Now playing with house money

Other than the one-handed ESPN Top 10 highlight reel catch by holdover Jadan Blue, almost every other big play in a 34-31 Temple football Homecoming win over visiting Memphis was made by a transfer portal guy.

Temple didn’t get a whole lot of them in the portal over the offseason but the ones it got made a difference on Saturday.

More than anything, it was a win for quality over quantity and for house money.

Georgia import D’Wan Mathis showed why he is Temple’s first quarterback “5 Star recruit” since Parade Magazine first-team All-American Kevin Harvey. He tied the record for single-game completions (John Waller against Buffalo shares it with him) with 35 and gave the crowd of 28,465 a glimpse of what an RPO quarterback could do with a tuck and run. Once Mathis ankle is 100 percent, Owl fans are going to see more of that. Let’s hope it’s sooner than later because nothing drives a defense crazier than a quarterback who can make a simple zone handoff read take it to the house on any given play.

Purdue transfer Amad Anderson sealed with the game by turning a short pass into a score.

UConn transfer Keyshawn Paul had a key fumble recovery caused by his relentless strip of the ballcarrier.

TU had 33x as many tweets as the next-best sports trend on Saturday afternoon.

Washington State transfer Will Rodgers III and Wake Forest transfer Manny Walker kept Memphis’ quarterback Sean Henigan’s head on a swivel.

Already, if you had the over in Vegas’ 2.5 over/under win total for the Owls, you’ve cashed in before the second league game and there maybe a few more wins to come because it’s really hard to figure this AAC race out below the Cincinnati level.

It’s all house money from this point out.

Memphis, which lost to Temple, knocked off a Mississippi State team three weeks ago that beat No. 15 Texas A&M Saturday.

UCF, which figured to be one of the two favorites, lost to a Navy team that lost to Marshall, 49-7.

UCF seems to be a lot more beatable today than it was Saturday.

So does nearly everybody else.

2018 Pa. broadcaster of the year Rob Vaughn was in the house

Really, with the exception of possibly Cincy, Temple can now win almost every game left on it schedule and it can lose almost every game left.

It’s simply a matter of this: Playmakers making plays. That’s how everyone has won in football since the game was invented four years after The Civil War ended.

Temple has had Blue and Jones make big-time plays for the last couple of years, but the more playmakers you have, the better the team’s bottom line.

Going into the season, it appeared the transfer portal guys were of quality but not of enough quantity to make a significant difference.

The bubble of that theory popped on Saturday thanks to the number of plays those few guys made.

The Owls have seven games left and, judging by the evidence left on the field Saturday, a lot more big-time plays to make both at home and on the road.

Cincy is next and nobody expects the Owls to win so they really have nothing to lose and can play without any pressure.

All the pressure will be on Cincy and, even though the game is on the road, house money is on Temple’s side.

Monday: A New Hierarchy

10.01.21
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Picturing another Temple win over Memphis

Imagine for a moment if the skeptics like me and most of the college football world were wrong and the highly-paid (some say overpaid) football coaching staff at Temple was right.

Temple would beat Memphis on Saturday.

Come to a fork in the road and there is a very narrow path off to the side where we can see a Temple win.

Let’s walk down that one.

If the Owls win, Jadan Blue could be the star of this game.

It’s a narrow trail but it looks like this:

Memphis struggled to beat an Arkansas State team, 55-50. That was the same Arkansas State team that lost to Washington, 52-3. Not surprising, you say because the Huskies are a big-time Power 5 team.

Yeah, but.

That same big-time Power 5 team lost to FCS Montana, the No. 13-ranked team in that classification.

Temple has had its recruiting problems since Matt Rhule left but every Temple recruiting class in the last decade was rated significantly higher than every Montana recruiting class. Maybe the Montana coaches are better.

Duh?

Temple has a puncher’s chance in this game and, hopefully, that punch is closer to Buster Douglas in his upset of Mike Tyson than it is to Ernie Terrell against Muhammad Ali.

Temple isn’t the Temple of 2016, but Memphis is not the Memphis of two years ago. That Memphis lost only one regular-season game.

Guess to who?

Temple.

One of the reasons was that Temple had a loud, enthusiastic, crowd of over 35,000 for its win.

This Temple crowd won’t approach that due to COVID and other issues but I have no doubt that this will be the largest Temple crowd of the season, my best guess in the 28-29,000 range. They will be taking names.

Hopefully, Temple will be kicking ass.

That’s where the Temple coaching staff comes into play.

Pretty humorous reference to Temple in this at the 6:00 mark.

Somewhere along the line, maybe with snow falling outside of Carey’s office window in January, this highly-paid group sat in the coaching offices of the $17 million Edberg-Olson Complex and decided that six portal starting transfers were enough to offset the the loss of a dozen really good high-character guys who were also good football players.

The math didn’t add up to me, but I’m not making $2 million per year like Rod Carey is.

Give the guy the benefit of the doubt, which we have not done since February. (Then again, he’s done nothing to earn it.)

In my mind, both Jadan Blue and Randle Jones can be big-time playmakers and, if five-star quarterback D’Wan Mathis can get them the ball both on jet sweeps and deep, the Owls have a chance. Both are NFL players who have graciously given themselves so that their teammates can wash out the bad taste of a 1-6 record last year with a better one this season. That’s the kind of selflessness, say, a R’Mahn Davis never showed here. A good game plan is what they deserve. Trick plays (shovel passes to Tayvon Ruley and an end around pass or two) would be helpful, but we’ve never seen that under Carey. They have a unique talent in backup running back Trey Blair, who was also a damn good high school quarterback. Is there a halfback pass in the playbook for him?

Anyone?

Buehler?

On defense, Manny Walker has been a star but Will Rodgers III came in more heralded and if both make plays against the true freshman Memphis quarterback, Temple could have a defensive score in this one. Rodgers has to time to snap count better and meet at the quarterback at the same time Walker does. Maybe the ball pops loose and Amir Tyler can scoop and score it. Sean Henigan was a big-time Texas high school quarterback, but only rated as a three-star recruit. Mathis, who turned down Michigan State and Ohio State, is the only five-star quarterback in the entire AAC.

Maybe he can turn the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine.

Arkansas State scored 50 on this squad. Temple will have to score 38 or more and avoid the special teams’ snafus that have played it for the last three years. I’ve maintained in this space that hope doesn’t get me to a bowl and my head tells me that this group is headed for 2-10. We said it would be 2-2 after four games and we were right. My guess is Memphis wins this something like 31-20.

It would be nice to be wrong about this team for once. Saturday would be a perfect place to start.

Picks this week: Going against conventional wisdom (and the G5) in picking host Notre Dame to upset Cincinnati, 28-24. (Cincy is a two-point favorite on the road.) ND recruits at a whole different level and Cincy had a tough game against another Indiana team, The University of Indiana. The Hoosiers aren’t nearly as good as the Irish. Also liking Oregon State as a 2.5-point underdog to visiting Washington, UAB as a 1.5-point favorite vs. visiting Liberty and Western Michigan as a 3-point favorite at Buffalo.

Lock of the week: AKRON getting 9.5 over visiting Ohio. Akron isn’t good, but Ohio (without Frank Solich) is truly putrid and nowhere near worthy of being almost a double-digit favorite. Ohio lost at home to Duquesne which, not all that long ago, was a Division III program. Akron not only covers but wins outright, 31-30.

Latest update: Lost on Notre Dame, Liberty and Akron, won on Oregon State and Western Michigan. With the 2-3 weekend, 10-5-1 against the spread is updated to 12-8-1.

Record: 10-5-1 ATS

Sunday: Homecoming Analysis

09.27.21
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It’s Put Up or Shut Up time for the Owls

About the time the preseason prognostications came out for Temple, the chatter coming from the players at the Edberg-Olson center was picking the Owls for the bottom of the AAC was a “joke” and “completely ridiculous.” Another Owl said: “It’s Temple. You cannot lose here.”

Now is the time for the Owls to put up or shut up starting at high noon on Saturday in the Homecoming Game against Memphis.

Win that one, and a lot of skeptics, including the one here, will be won over.

Lose it and the 2.5 over/under total for the Owls looks about right.

Interestingly enough, we didn’t hear anything on that front from any of the coaches. Rod Carey was the only asked about a win total and he issued some vague responses that “we want to give our fans a team to be proud of” and “we want to play hard every game.”

Hmm.

I suspect a lot of undermanned 0-11 and 1-11 Owl teams in the past played hard (see Al Golden’s first year for evidence of that), but failed to deliver the bottom line.

Wins.

The good news for the Owls is that last year’s 1-6 team pretty much played Memphis to a standoff on the road in a game that only got away in the last four minutes of the fourth quarter. Was that mostly the result of a good game from quarterback Anthony Russo? Can D’Wan Mathis help the Owls gain 500 yards of total offense, like Russo did?

If the Owls want to prove the naysayers wrong, they have a chance to starting on Saturday.

We will find out on Saturday.

The bad news is that if any team has underachieved from a perception standpoint it’s been this one.

We wrote in this space last week that the Owls would “win 61-7” give or take 20 points either way against Wagner and they hit the exact low end of that projection, a 41-7 win. Worse, they had to fight like hell to put lipstick on that slippery pig.

Meanwhile, an average MAC team–Buffalo–had no trouble putting a 69-7 number on Wagner and the Bulls struggled to beat Old Dominion 35-34 on Saturday.

You are the company you keep and Temple isn’t keeping even Buffalo or Old Dominion company.

Can that change?

Err, doubtful, but there is hope.

Memphis doesn’t appear to be as good as it was last year. Sure, the Tigers beat Mississippi State at home but a careful review of the punt return that won it for them showed the ref waving his arms to signify the ball dead before the Memphis punt returner picked it up and went to the house.

Replay or not, that alone should have nullified the return.

Memphis lost to University of Texas (San Antonio) last week and USTA is a nice unbeaten team but not on a par with the other unbeatens. It beat Illinois but Illinois is a second-tier Big 10 squad.

Memphis is not as good as Rutgers nor it is as good as Boston College. Lock down the special teams, do not defer the opening kickoff, and the Owls have a chance to compete. Down the ball, pick it up and hand it to the ref on punts.

Then the Owls have to protect Mathis a lot better than they have and establish the run.

We haven’t seen it consistently so far but all they need to do is put everything together for 60 minutes.

Now that conference play is here, it’s time to stop talking about being good and actually show it. Hell, it probably should have started four weeks ago but better late than never.

Friday: Memphis Preview

Sunday: Homecoming Analysis

09.25.21
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Most unimpressive 41-7 win ever

A win is a win is a win, they say.

There are exceptions to every rule.

One of them came Saturday in Temple’s 41-7 win over perhaps … perhaps .. the worst FCS school playing today, Wagner.

The win told us a few things, some we knew, some we didn’t.

One, Miami of Florida, for all of Manny Diaz’s faults, is significantly better than Temple.

Diaz took care of business in a 69-0 win over Central Connecticut State.

Some recent Temple Homecoming crowds. The 2019 Homecoming drew 34,253. (The Tulane game listed above was 2015, not 2017.)

Central Connecticut State beat Wagner, 21-19, earlier this season.

Another is that Buffalo of the MAC is significantly better than Temple. Buffalo beat Wagner, 69-7, and took care of business in the first, not second, half.

The fact that Temple allowed this team a 7-0 lead and the game was respectable at halftime is a total and utter disgrace.

But we’ve come to expect that under Rod Carey at Temple.

Now we’re onto the American Athletic Conference portion of the schedule and we can only pray that the Owls know their shortcomings and strengths and act on both.

The one consolation that I can see in this is that the Owls were without two of their best players–in my mind their two best–Randle Jones and Jadan Blue.

Maybe they make a difference at Homecoming next week, maybe not.

All I know is that Blue caught three touchdown passes against Memphis in a 41-29 loss last year and his presence in the lineup next week makes the Owls that much better.

Blue sat out Saturday due to “concussion protocol” but, according to one member of the team who talked to him prior to the game, Blue told him it is “100 percent” that he will be back for the Memphis game. Jones probably also will be back.

That’s comforting.

Also comforting is the fact that D’Wan Mathis will not have to take the bad taste in the mouth of an 8-for-24 performance against Rutgers into the all-important league opener.

That’s important because Mathis strikes me as the kind of guy who needed a confidence-builder going into a big game. Put it this way. In his time on the field last year, he had more interceptions than touchdown passes and this year he did not look much better.

You can be Joe Namath in practice but if your resume in “real games” isn’t impressive, your confidence probably is shaken as well.

Now Mathis can take a little swag into probably the best-attended game of the season and a lot of people rooting for him.

Also, he will probably be unleased to run, something Memphis has not seen on film.

Whether that will be enough to beat Memphis is questionable at best.

What is not questionable is that the Owls will have to play their best game to do so and, to date, that has not happened.

Monday: What to expect

09.24.21
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Memo to new AD: No More Wagners

Notre Dame is the kind of team TU should play, not Wagner

Somewhere in the new few days, the person who will be Temple’s new athletic director will sit down with the President and the Board of Trustees and discuss a vision for the future of the Owls’ athletic program.

Memo to that guy or gal:

Tell the BOT that you won’t be scheduling Wagner in football anymore or, for that matter, Stony Brook or Bucknell and you will work to get Lafayette and Rhode Island off future Owl schedules.

Temple can deliver the 4th largest market only if it gets bold with the schedule

The reasoning is simply this: The entire goal of the Temple athletic department should be to get in a Power 5 Conference. That ship may have already sailed but just in case it returns to the Port of Philadelphia, the university should be positioned for a promotion, not a demotion.

The way to do it is this: Schedule four Power 5 schools and beat two of them on a regular basis. Create some juice on the sidelines and in the stands. If this coaching staff can’t do it, find one that will.

This streak ended under Carey.

When the story of Pat Kraft is written at Temple, he will be known for a formula that puts a FCS team on the schedule every year, two Power 5s and another G5 school. He will also be known for giving the Owls Geoff Collins for two years, Manny Diaz for 18 days and Rod Carey for probably a short time as well.

It’s not a good look.

The new AD should have a bolder mission for Temple sports and that’s to put the Owls on course to be a winner in their two major sports.

Around the time the Owls are thumping Wagner in a glorified practice, Diaz’s Miami team will be playing Central Connecticut State. My educated guess is that Diaz will put an 81-0 thumping on CCS, the alma mater of former Temple head coach Steve Addazio. About a thousand miles North of that game, Temple will probably beat Wagner somewhere on the order of 61-7. The most competitive game Wagner played this year was a 21-19 loss to Central Connecticut State.

What do both games prove?

Absolutely nothing.

That’s a wasted weekend from the standpoint of program branding. Consider this: Four years ago, Wagner played UConn to a three-point loss. The next week it lost by 10 to East Stroudsburg University, a Division II program. When I went to Temple, that school was known as East Stroudsburg State Teachers College.

Miami’s brand can survive a game against Central Connecticut State and Penn State’s brand can survive one against Villanova. Temple doesn’t have that luxury.

Temple should never play a team that had a Division II team on the schedule so recently, let alone lost to it.

The argument in the interview room should be two-fold: One, play the Power 5 and have some success against them and put fans in the stands and get television ratings in the largest available market that doesn’t have a P5 team; two, if you need to beat a FCS team to get to six wins when 130 teams play FBS football, you need to get out of the football-playing business.

Temple does not need to get out of that business but needs to rejuvenate the product by winning.

Because the Owls have proven they can win big in football under Matt Rhule and Al Golden (and to a lesser extent Addazio and Collins) and draw huge TV ratings, that should be the new AD’s vision again. Golden is out there, but if he doesn’t want the job, surely there are young Al Goldens out there who can recapture the magic of Temple TUFF.

It has been done before and it can be done in the future.

That’s the bold vision the BOT needs to hear and a plan to execute it should be outlined.

Their next words should be:

“You’re hired.”

Latest update: Picked Wyoming to beat UConn, 41-7 (it won only 24-22), picked Toledo to beat Ball State 24-14 (it won 22-12), Western Michigan to beat San Jose State, 31-21 (it won 23-3), Boston College to beat Missouri, 24-21 (it won, 31-24). With that 3-1 record against the spread, we are 10-5-1 (with the push being Wyoming-NIU) ATS this season.

Picks this week: Liking 3 favorites and 1 dog this week. Wyoming 41, UCONN 7 (Wyoming favored by 29.5), Toledo 24, Ball State 14 (Toledo favored by 5), Western Michigan 31, San Jose State 21 (Western Michigan favored by 3), Boston College 24, Missouri 21 (Missouri favored by 1.5).

Last week’s update: Tulane let me down, but Wyoming easily covered, Northwestern lost, Tulsa covered, Purdue lost and Michigan State not only covered but won outright. So so far for the season 7-4-1 against the spread.

Late Saturday: Game, such as it is, analysis

09.20.21
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Recent development: The Temple Curse

Ifeanyi Maijeh is warming the bench at Rutgers two years after being a first-team AAC performer at Temple.

For those Temple players who saw the performance of Isaiah Graham-Mobley and Khris Banks on Saturday and think grass is greener on the other side of the street, they might want to think again.

For every IGM and Banks, there are about five Quincy Roches or Ifeanyi Maijehs.

Call it The Temple Curse. Call it whatever you want but, since Matt Rhule left, it also applies to coaches who succeeded him.

First, we will stick with the players.

Linwood Crump will have to wait 1 more year to play for Daz.

Roche left Temple to go to Miami was considered “a 3-4 round” draft pick had he gone straight to the NFL from 10th and Diamond.

He left for Miami to ostensibly increase his draft standing but he really made it worse. Roche was drafted in the sixth round (not fourth) and to add insult to injury had to split his time on the field in his final year with two other defensive ends in Manny Diaz’s rotation.

He was cut by the Steelers and is now on their practice squad.

Had Roche remained at Temple and claimed a second consecutive AAC Defensive Player of the Year Award, chances are better than even that Roche would have been drafted no lower than four and a team with that kind of investment would have to think twice before cutting him.

Maijeh is a similar story. He was a first-team All-AAC defensive tackle in 2019 but used the portal to make his way to Rutgers where he has three whole tackles this season, all assists and no solo ones. His career definitely is on a downward trend and has been for some time. After that first season at Temple when he had 52 tackles and 6.5 sacks, he was putrid last year with only 15 tackles and no sacks.

Kenny Yeboah left Temple to go to Ole Miss but that didn’t help him in the draft, either. He wasn’t drafted and had to go to the NFL as an undrafted free agent. He was cut by the Jets and, like Roche, a practice squad player.

Anthony Russo left Temple to play in the Big 10 but it doesn’t look good for him, either, as Payton Thorne has been stellar. Russo got injured in meaningless mop-up time against Youngstown State and left the game in a walking boot. Had Russo remained at Temple he might have backed up D’Wan Mathis but more than certainly would have been ahead of true freshman Justin Lynch in the depth chart.

If that was Russo behind center on Saturday, do you think the Owls score “only” three points? I don’t. He put up a total of 58 as the starting QB against both Navy and Memphis last year and was playing a defense that allowed 28 points the week before to a far less talented UMass team.

Vandy running back Ra’Mahn Davis, who didn’t do squat in a 23-3 loss to East Tennessee (not regular Tennessee or even Middle Tennessee), was a victim of the Temple Curse as he is injured and for the season. He went the extra step of quitting in the middle of last season.

Cornerback Linwood Crump Jr. left the team to become almost a certain starter at Colorado State but he got injured in preseason and will not play this fall.

Somebody up there or down here or sideways doesn’t like players who leave Temple. So far so good for IGM and Banks but, if I’m them, my radar is up for cutback blocks or targeting next week.

Meanwhile, both Diaz and Geoff Collins are under fire at Miami and Georgia Tech and they might be dismissed before Rod Carey is because those schools routinely eat bad contracts and Temple does not.

Ironically, one of the stated reasons for this portal rule is if coaches could leave for another school without sitting out a year, players should be able to as well.

A simple solution for that (probably not holding up legally) would be for both coaches and players to have to sit out a year.

Now, it’s a free-for-all and MOST people are finding out that the grass is not greener on the other side of 10th Street.

Maybe that will stop the hemorrhaging of players in the future but it certainly doesn’t help Temple now.

Friday: The Wagner, err, Game

09.18.21
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Saturday against Wagner: Enjoy the (last) win

A friend of mine for many years who pretty much knows Temple sports inside out put the Rod Carey Era (Error) in perfect perspective when I posted that the Georgia Tech fans are upset with Geoff Collins.

“He’s the Milli of college football head coaches. I fear we hired the Vanilli.”

Reading that line caused me to spit out my morning coffee and laugh out loud.

So true.

The song Milli and Vanilli got caught for being fakes on was “Blame it on the Rain.”

Our Vanilli blamed a 28-3 loss on the refs yesterday.

Really, Rod?

I could see blaming a 10-7 or maybe … maybe .. a 14-3 loss on the refs but 28-3?

We are seeing the last vestiges of a head coach in trouble.

I learned a few things I suspected but did not know for sure yesterday.

The least important one was that I could not take sunscreen into the stadium so as burned up as I was on the inside that’s how it showed on the outside.

The other three are way more important.

President Wingard, please heed these words.

One, the era of the hard-ass coach is over.

Two, the schemes on both the offensive and defensive sides are ass-backwards.

Three, when you have shitty special teams and WIN the toss, please do not … I repeat DO NOT … defer for the second half. I would rather see an onsides kick than a regular one in that situation but prefer to give my offense the ball over anything else.

That kickoff return killed any home-field advantage the Owls might have had.

When freaking UMASS gives BC a better game than Temple does, you know you have COACHING problems.

Let’s take No. 1 first. Getting to know the parents in the parking lot two years ago I got the vibe that almost every kid in the program “wanted” to transfer because they didn’t, in their words, “feel” Carey.

In other words, those kids–mostly good kids from good families–saw the direction Carey was taking the program and were not on board. The kids who could take the portal route did but those who couldn’t remained. There are a lot of good kids and good players here suffering as a result. They had been through winning programs under Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins and saw a decline under Carey. So did pretty much every Temple fan.

In order to win at Temple, you can’t be a “my-way-or-the-highway” guy. You’ve got to be a coach the players BOTH love and respect. The players loved Matt Rhule and Al Golden but more importantly respected both.

You would not see the hemorrhaging of players that we have seen under Carey with either or those two guys or a number of guys who are good players’ coaches.

You can be both–a players’ coach and a respected one.

Carey is neither.

The only reason why Temple will win 60-0 this weekend is the players. Certainly not the coaches. That’s how much better Temple’s players are than Wagner’s ones. Maybe a little more. Maybe a little less but I doubt the swing will be more than 20 points either way.

Enjoy it.

It will be the last one for a long time.

The way Temple played on Saturday, I don’t see the Owls beating either USF or Navy and those are the only two hopes for wins remaining on the schedule. Navy has a far better coaching staff and USF has Florida players. Even if the Owls win both of those games, are you satisfied with four wins?

I didn’t think so.

The next move is up to the President and the Temple Board of Trustees, if they care enough to bring us back to where we were three years ago.

If they don’t, all the work that got us to where we were in 2005 until 2019 will be for naught and throwing away that work of mostly two good coaches and men would be heartbreaking.

Monday: The Temple Curse

Friday: Wagner

09.17.21
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BC-Temple: So many story lines, so little time

Saturday’s big question will be if Kraft’s feet can actually leave the ground on a BC touchdown

If you are walking around Lot K tomorrow, like I will be, you can be excused about having the feeling of de ja vu.

Shooting the breeze with Pat Kraft about football?

Check.

Walking around the Lot and seeing the affable family and friends of Khris Banks and Isaiah Graham-Mobley?

Check.

Shaking hands before the game with Boomer (Aaron Boumerhi)?

Check.

Been there, done that.

The last time many thousands of Temple fans saw the team this was the collective look after a 55-13 loss to an ACC team. Maybe these Owls can produce a smile around 3:15 p.m. Saturday.

Except for them being the good guys, they are now the bad guys.

How did the world ever turn upside down?

Welcome to college football, 2021.

In a perfect world, the good guys would stay the good guys and the bad guys would stay the bad ones.

Whatever you feel about Kraft, the current AD at Boston College and the former one at Temple, I don’t remember a single athletic director not named Gavin White who you could walk up to and get an HONEST opinion about the game of football from.

This exchange between me and Pat in Lot K circa Geoff Collins and Dave Patenaude comes to mind:

Me: “Pat, you’re going to have to talk to Geoff about Patenaude. I have no idea what he’s doing.”

Pat: “Mike, you and me both. He’s got me scratching my head every week.”

Most athletic directors would shrug their shoulders and say that’s the head coaches bailiwick.

This guy was an honest, good, man. He still is.

For the first time in two years, this beautiful tradition returns tomorrow.

When Kraft hired Manny Diaz to replace Collins at Temple, I screamed bloody murder in this space. I wrote then that Diaz, who was the son of the ex-Mayor of Miami, would be gone as soon as Mark Richt left.

I thought it would be a year or so.

Little did I know it would be 18 days.

Kraft never held it against me. He respected my opinion.

Now seeing what Diaz has done with Miami talent, I know Temple has dodged a huge bullet.

When he hired Rod Carey, I wrote that I thought Buffalo’s Lance Leipold or Eastern Michigan’s Chris Creighton might have been a better choice but, if Rod beats Boston College on Saturday (and I pray he will), Kraft might ironically be responsible for an embarrassing BC loss. I was for Leipold and Creighton because they did more with less than Carey did but Carey beating’s BC’s butt will prove my sorry ass wrong.

And, ironically, Pat Kraft right.

Geez, I hope so.

Hope doesn’t get me the AAC title or even a bowl game so I think BC will win this one and the 16-point spread sounds about right. The last time we saw Carey coach against an ACC team turned into a 55-13 loss and a lot of Temple fans walking out of the stadium disgusted.

The caveat there is we saw some life with the Owls last week.

The Owls showed a pulse and a lot of Temple TUFF in a 45-24 win over Akron. They got a good pass rush from their Power 5 transfers and an ESPN highlight reel play from Wake Forest portal guy Manny Walker. Temple needs a big pass rush, solid run stoppage and the kind of turnover-free football from Justin Lynch they got last week. Keep D’Wan Mathis on the bench and have him regain his swag against Wagner next week. That’s my vote. Have Justin play four games and save his redshirt unless he Wally Pipps Mathis in a big win over BC.

Put it this way: Temple had five turnovers in a 61-14 Week One loss and zero turnovers in a 45-24 win a week ago.

Football ain’t rocket science. It never was. Protect the football, rush the bad guys’ quarterback, win the damn game.

Whatever happens, it will be good to see Temple fans cheering the Owls and singing “T for Temple U” after every touchdown again. Temple drew 69,176 fans for its 2015 home opener, 35,004 fans or its 2016 opener and 35,117 for its 2017 home opener. It won two of those three games and attendance for the rest of the season suffered because of its shocking home opening loss to Army in 2016 and soared after wins the other two opening games. Win this one and the fans will keep coming back.

For once, it would be nice if the good guys would show the bad guys they made the wrong choice.

Picks this week: TULANE plus 14.5 at Ole Miss (Tulane gave Oklahoma all it wanted and Okie is better than Ole Miss); WYOMING -6.5 vs. Ball State; NORTHWESTERN -2.5 at Duke; TULSA +27.5 at The Ohio State; PURDUE +7.5 at Notre Dame (Purdue is considerably better than the Toledo and FSU teams ND beat and already has a win over a decent Oregon State squad); MICHIGAN STATE +6.5 at Miami. I think Purdue not only covers but wins the game outright, something on the order of 24-21.

9/21 update: Tulane let me down, but Wyoming easily covered, Northwestern lost, Tulsa covered, Purdue lost and Michigan State not only covered but won outright. So so far for the season 7-4-1 against the spread.

9/17 Update: Last week, predicted Pitt by five (it won by 7), Purdue 51-0 (it won 49-0), NIU by 4 (it lost by seven, a push) Nebraska by four (it won by 25), App. State by 3 (it lost by two) and BYU by one (it both won and covered).

Season to date: 4-2 straight up, 4-1-1 ATS

Sunday: Game Analysis

Monday: The Temple Curse

09.13.21
by

Beating BC anyway you can

It was only three years ago Temple last played Boston College.

Sometime late Saturday I received this text from a long-time Temple fan:

“Hey, did you see Boston College quarterback Phil Jurkovec went down with a wrist injury?”

Yeah, I did.

My initial reaction was that I wanted him to play so opposing fans and naysayers of Temple won’t say “yeah, but Jurkovec didn’t play” in the still unlikely event the Owls would win.

“I don’t want to win like that,” I typed back.

That was my initial reaction but after sleeping on the question I really don’t care if he plays or not.

I HOPE Temple plays to its potential, maybe gets a few breaks and pulls out the win. If one of those breaks is Jurkovec’s bum wrist, so be it. Temple will have to play with its backup QB, too, so I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for the bad guys.

That’s how sorely Temple needs some breaks especially after getting a series of bad ones the last couple of years, especially in that all-important first home game.

Plenty of other teams are getting breaks and maybe it’s about time Temple gets some.

Really, the first couple of weeks in college football has restored a lot of the faith in the game that I had lost with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

First, UC-Davis won at Tulsa.

Then, South Dakota State won at Colorado State.

Then, East Tennessee State destroyed Vanderbilt and Montana won at Washington.

And, finally, Jacksonville State took advantage of a Hail Mary and won at Florida State.

The latter three wins, where FCS teams beat high-profile Power 5 teams, were particularly encouraging. None of those teams even recruit on the level of Temple, let alone the teams they were able to beat.

https://twitter.com/TUFFRecruiting/status/1437088879199211526

If those teams can make their own breaks over teams whose recruiting rankings are significantly higher, then so can Temple. Hell, Akron was far more competitive in its games last year than UMass was and destroyed a Bowling Green team, 31-3, that UMass would have probably lost to a season ago.

A year ago, a former classmate of mine suggested it was pure folly for Temple to ever entertain the notion that it can beat Boston College because, he said, “they recruit on a whole different level than Temple.”

I pointed out to him that the Boston College team that got destroyed by Cincinnati, 37-8, in 2019 couldn’t compete with a Cincy team that barely beat Temple (15-13).

“Yeah, well that was before they had Jurkovec,” he said.

Well, I really don’t care if they have Jurkovec or not as long as the pixie dust sprinkled on Montana, SDSU, ETSU, Jacksonville State nd UC-Davis finds its way to Lincoln Financial Field. There seems to be a lot of that dust around this season for some reason and Temple could use it dropping down from a cloud in South Philly between noon-3 on Saturday.

If so, Temple wins, with or without Jurkovec.

Friday: BC Preview